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Jul 7, 2016

Thursday, July 7th 2016 Jeffrey Wechsler

38D. Needing to be bailed out ... or where 20-, 27-, 45- and 51-Across may be found : IN A JAM

The theme entries:

20A. Office supply : PRINTER PAPER. Paper jam. If this happens to my home printer I pretty much have to take the whole thing apart to fix it.

27A. Jaguar, for one : AUTOMOBILE. Traffic jam. A mostly permanent state of affairs for the 101 and 405 freeways in my bailiwick. I try to time my arrivals back at LAX to miss the worst of the parking lot effect.

51A. Certain trio member : JAZZ MUSICIAN. Jam session. And a great excuse to link the great Chet Atkins and "Jam Man", brought to a broader audience by a certain insurance company commercial.

Now then, not beating around the bush with this one - I thought the theme entries came across as very uneven. You have a paper in a paper jam, that's fair. but you don't have an automobile jam; you have a traffic jam, and the musical jam session is another step removed from the flow of the theme.

That said, still an entertaining puzzle. I circled right around before coming back to the north west corner to finish. Those three little downs at 1, 2 and 3 make for a tricky trifecta.

17. Shot that can't be blocked : FREE THROW. I threw myself for a loop here by happily filling in FOUL THROW.

19. Complaint : PEEVE

22. Elbows, e.g. : PASTA. Food! A study (of more than 26,000 Italians) widely reported over the last couple of days concluded that those who ate pasta as part of their diet had a lower body mass index. Be warned however - you don't find "unlimited pasta bowl and breadsticks" restaurants in Italy. I use Lidia Bastianich's recipe for marinara sauce. Simple and delicious. Try to get genuine San Marzano tomatoes - the difference in flavor is very apparent.

25. Cause to roll in the aisles : SLAY. Slayed 'em! Knocked 'em dead!

26. Electrolysis particle : ION

30. Queen who succeeded William III : ANNE. Early 1700's baroque architecture in the UK is known as the "Queen Anne style".

31. Ring result : TKO. A Technical Knock-Out in Boxing when the ref stops the fight.

32. Support for many a 29-Down : WIRE. Not an underwire?

33. More degrading : BASER

34. Gucci competitor : PRADA

36. Parade sight : FLOAT

38. "My thoughts are ... " : I'D SAY

40. Economist Smith : ADAM. Author of "The Wealth of Nations". I studied Economics at school and found the whole thing fascinating. You graduated with a BA in Economics, rather than a BSc which I found amusing. It's not an exact science - too many moving parts.

"Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today,
I wish, I wish he'd go away..."

From Antigonish by William Hughes Mearns

50. Pug or Peke : BREED

55. Really enjoyed : ATE UP. Food! I made a paella mixta last night which I "ate up". When I see good-looking mussels, shrimp and chicken thighs at my local market, it's time to bust out the rice and saffron and go for broke. It's a sobering thought that a good-looking mussel is a girl with a beard. I also need food photography lessons. Any offers? Food! for instruction.

56. Hard times : LEAN YEARS

60. Haggard of country : MERLE

61. Sets a price of : ASKS. I started pondering whether I'd say "sets the price of" or "sets a price for" before I realized life is too short to waste on such ponderings.

7. Film for which Jessica Lange won her first Oscar : TOOTSIE. Best Supporting Actress for this 1982 movie. Later Best Actress for Blue Sky in 1994.

8. Plus : AS WELL

9. __ cup : SIPPY

10. Inventor's need : IDEA

11. Stock : KEEP IN STORE

12. "Try this" : HAVE ONE

16. "My Fair Lady" lyricist : LERNER

18. People mover : TRAMWAY. There's one in Hartsfield International Airport that amuses me - see 52D below.

21. "Norma __" : RAE. Because "JEAN" doesn't fit.

22. Square on a muffin : PAT. What? Oh! Pat of butter. Or Oleo, if you must.,

23. Relative of a puffin : AUK

24. What many a countdown clock does : STOPS AT ZERO. Or at "007" in James Bond movies. I seem to remember continuity problems in "Goldfinger" when each time the camera cut to the nuclear bomb countdown timer it had moved much more slowly than the time elapsing around it. Probably some physics time-warp weirdness.

42. Opposite of post- : PRE- This is one of those clues when you wonder why the grid didn't just come "pre-filled".

43. Qantas hub, in itineraries : SYD. Why no "U" in Qantas? Because it's an acronym of "Queensland And Northern Territories Aerial Services".

45. Site of the George W. Bush presidential library : SMU. Southern Methodist. I hesitate between this and TCU when this clue crops up.

46. Eco-friendly wheels : TESLAS. Not the best news week for Telsa and Elon Musk.

47. Antarctic explorer Shackleton : ERNEST. I just finished reading "Endurance" by Alfred Lansing which tells the amazing story of the Trans-Antarctic expedition which took place 100 years ago. Gripping stuff.

49. Force : IMPEL

52. Pilot's alphabet ender : ZULU. Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo .... At Atlanta Hartsfield International Airport, the concourses are named A thru F. When you're on the people-mover, the stops are announced "A - Alpha", "B - Bravo", "C - Charlie" ... then "D - David" so as not to confuse the passengers flying on Delta Airlines, whose flights mostly depart from the A and B concourses.

50 comments:

I MET A MAN WHO WASN'T THERE,I said, "I'm sorry for the stare;If you were here, I think I'D SAYI didn't look for you today!"He said, "I see that you perceiveThe reason for my major PEEVE!I could be anywhere, I swear;Some people think I'm everywhere!They call me when they're IN A JAM,I don't know who they think I am!

I'm not their God up in the SKIES,I travel time in this disguise!As I FLOAT thru the fourth dimensionMy time flitbit builds up tensionThat like a skidding AUTOMOBILE,Where I pop out-in is not IDEAL!I am not really here at all,I'm really in your upstairs hall!And you know the SYDney band-shell?Well, I'm really there AS WELL,Listening to a JAZZ MUSICIAN,Tho I didn't pay admission!Altho this conversation's fun,I'm now afraid I have to run.I've a luncheon date with Nero,Before my flitbit STOPS AT ZERO! ~ { * poof * } ~

FIW. I didn't catch ROOK, so my homophones were OAR & ARE. Lack of a ta-da tipped me off that I needed to look, and found and corrected it easily enough. I don't know how I ever thought I'd finished a puzzle on paper, with no ta-da to warn me when I wasn't done!I thought the theme was even enough -- PAPER in a paper jam (aka printer jam), STRAWBERRY in strawberry jam, against AUTOMOBILE in a traffic jam, MUSICIAN in a music jam. I didn't get the theme without the reveal, possibly because I was also trying to include FREE THROW, LEAN YEARS, KEEP IN STORE, & STOPS AT ZERO into the theme as well!

If you noticed the break in today's poem, that's where a small crisis of faith occurred. The "no religious dissension" rule guided my option. Besides, I always want to write science fiction!

Well JW is back in Thursday, which is where he started here back when Marti was d ping her daily duties as our Thursday blogger. I think Steve is being a bit harsh as his criticism about uneven theme ignores his own title. All four are things in a JAM, albeit different types. Nevertheless, it was a fun solve. I am surprised you did not grouse about the OAR ORE cross reference.

STOPS AT ZERO, BOMB BAY, KEEPS IN STORE, LEAN YEARS and FREE THROW all played well.

Saw "homonym" and thought "anagram." Felt smug with EAR and ARE in place. Like Steve, I had to circle back to that NW corner and saw R__K, oh ROOK. But that would give me OAR and ORE, and they just sound alike. D'oh!

So that darned queen was an ANT, not a bee. Were you thinking of a bunny when LEANY EARS showed up?

Hard to believe that MERLE's been gone for three months already. Before you say, "Hey, it's been almost a year!" I'm talking Haggard, not Reagle.

Cheers, Hahtoolah. Good to see you back "where you belong." Did you mean to say "uphill?"

The ROOK came easily but after filling KLE it took a while for the 'thief'-KLEPTO to pop into my brain. LEOS had me stumped because I looked at A_W_L_ for a while, wanting LEON before I finished it. The rest of the puzzle was a speed run with NOAH being the only unknown.

My PEEVE. I know KEEP IN STORE was correct for 'Stock' but the term 'keep in STOCK' for 'store' would have been better. I've never heard the term 'keep in store'-'storage' yes; 'store' no.

TESLA-S are eco-friendly only in the sense that they send the pollution to the source of the electricity and manufacturing of the batteries to somebody else's back yard.

Like Hahtoolah I climbed uphill AS WELL and avoided the NW corner until the very end. As has been mentioned before about other puzzles, once a long area is filled it covers a lot of territory and the corresponding perps can be attached.

I've seen Trevor NOAH so that was a good start though queen BEE held me up for a bit. Ironically, WIRE took too long to fill though I'm intimately familiar with that support. I love Jessica Lange and had forgotten her role in TOOTSIE and that she won the Oscar. PRADA followed quickly once BRA appeared.

It was fun seeing KLEPTO which led me to ROOK then OAR/ORE hit me like a ton of bricks. SIKH made an interesting fill, too.

Thank you so much, Jeffrey Wechsler! I love that you IMPEL me to think. And thank you, Steve. I love your enthusiasm for food.

Creative theme as I've come to expect from JW, WOS about trying to fit FREE THROW into the theme until the reveal clue told which answers fit the theme. The "people mover" clue brought me back to trips to Disneyland in the 60s/70s where they had a ride called the People Mover in Tomorrowland. It was a boring ride, but my cousin's boyfriend loved it so we rode it more than I would have liked, so the TRAMWAY was easy to picture.

We're having a dark thunderstorm morning here, so would love to snuggle down in bed with a good book - but need to head to work.Thanks Steve and JW!

Very quick which surprised me because I have been thinking today is Friday. I, too, saved the extreme NW for last. Then I got KLEPTO by adding K to the crosses, followed by ROOK, OAR and ORE. TA DA!The theme seemed even enough for me. As Lemonade said,"All four are things in a JAM, albeit different types." It was not necessary to name the types of jams.Before I go to the supermarket to restock my pantry shelves, I check what I still have enough of, what I have KEPT IN STORE.The management SETS A PRICE OF $10 FOR a plate of pasta.I doubted LEOS, but kept it in.ATE UP reminded me of yesterday's clue, so I was not thinking of food, but of entertainment.We have watched TOOTSIE many times. I also watched The Devil Wears PRADA several times.Thanks for the "cookie' advice yesterday.Lemony, you just keep right on being Lemony. I love your posts and your Friday blog.

I passed by the NW corner for a while and worked the rest of the puzzle. Theme was fine. Got them easily. IN A JAM certainly helped with JAZZ MUSICIAN.

Only ink blot was the D in BREED. Had an R to start with. SYD fixed that.

Liked BOMB BAY. My dad was a B-17 pilot in WW-II. I read all about that airplane as a youth.

Took a while to get AS WELL. I wanted LEON for 14A, but held off. Then it hit me. Saved an ink blot.

Finally got ROOK for 1A. Took a while. The 2 and 3 downs threw me for a loop. I thought a homonym had to be spelled the same as the other. And pronounced the same. Just different meanings. Any thoughts?

Well nuts. A FIW again today. A careless error at that. Somehow had doctor's ASAP rather than editor's let stand mark. All I had to do was look at the down clue "Wedding tradition." I'm pretty confident that I would have known it wasn't CAKA.

Thank you Jeffrey. Thank you Steve.

I'D SAY there was a tip of the hat to the avocation of yesterday's sherpa. Although, the vids and pics we see often show him in a larger ensemble than a trio.

With CDC in place, that second C made me think my malt was going to be chocolate. But not long enough to fill all those blanks, and I have yet to see a cLOAT at the parade. True dat, the FDA would make much, much more sense than the CDC.

Steve, I'll second the San Marzano tomato comments. Just a pinch or two of salt and maybe a hint of oregano makes a very simple and great tasting pizza sauce.

Another great puzzle from Jeff, today. Not so hard. Scattergun initial fill, but then it settled down into a nice routine solve. Went clockwise. As with Steve, NW came in near the end. No lookups. Erasure was I had NIH before CDC.ZULU - Bravo ZULU to JAMMIN' Jeff.ROOK - Cool clue. When I play black, I always try for the opening/mate that Steve showed.

Musings-A just-right Thursday exercise-PRINTER JAMS seem to occur 5 min before you need a set of papers for your classroom-A seasonal source of STRAWBERRIES-Another inch of rain last night has made for IDEAL growing conditions-What member of the family is used to describe an underhanded FREE THROW?-Seeing the FLOATS up close at Pasadena High School a day after the parade is amazing-“What are you ASKING?” is the right question not “How much do you want?”-NBA REF’s let it get very physical in the finals, which hurt Golden State-Sanctimonious NOAH finds humor on only one side of the political spectrum. It gets tiresome-We all know what happened eventually in this BOMB BAY-Recnetly clued Hayley and M.I.T. (:07)

"Cannon Mountain Aerial Tramway is open May 21, 2016 - October 16, 2016**No Tram rides available on July 7 due to a scheduled maintenance project. The Tram base lodge WILL REMAIN OPEN on this day with Gift Shop, Ice Cream, Snacks, Fudge, Bike Rentals, Old Man Museum & Park Information available all day."

Thanks for the fun Jeffrey and Steve. Put me among the solvers who found this one a Friday level. I did get the theme early and smiled. I made strawberry jam the other day with our fresh berries.

17A "Shot that can't be blocked" made me think of tennis and Raonic's wicked serve that has brought him to the semi-finals against Federer at Wimbledon.

I had Take one before HAVE ONE, I Saw before I MET, Leon before LEOS. My corner was where 2 walls meet and I filled in Nook before ROOK (AHA moment). I was also misdirected thinking of joints before PASTA elbows.My countdown clock was at Times Square on New Years Eve and I had Drops at Zero before STOPS AT ZERO.Like YR, I remembered ATE UP as adored from yesterday.

The only muffin I might top with a PAT of butter is a warm bran muffin. The KLEPTO and ANT clues are either cute or meh! I'm leaning toward Meh.

It is hot and humid here today and we may have rain for the concert in the park tonight. Can't complain as we need the rain badly.

Jeff provided a doable Thursday puzzle that had a few stumbling blocks in the way (for me at least.) Steve provided an admirable description of Jeff's deviousness in his puzzle.

I figured I was going to be toast with the two homonyms side by side with each other as the clue for the other. It would have been better if either one had a different clue, like "Propeller" or "Rock." If you didn't get ROOK or EARL there wasn't much hope of filling in the Homonyms without red letter help.

Today is National Strawberry Sundae day so the Malt clue sort of matches the day. It's also National Chocolate day. Two of my favorite indulgences.

No walk in the park for me today. I stumbled on OID, having ISH, OUS, and INE first. Of course PRADA is way out of my league, and I wanted TRANSIT in the worst way for TRAMWAY, and I DON'T for I'D SAY, so never got that section sorted out.

HG - "Granny" style for the FT's. Rick Berry of the erstwhile Golden State Warriors made those at a rate of about 90% for his career - Wilt Chamberlain also "threw" with this style

I too had to check the calendar to see if it were a Friday when I saw J Chen's name as the constructor. Unlike others I was able to solve this in Thursday time, with just one or two write-overs. A few chunky clues and solves but I finally got the reveal and the SW corner. I considered LOG JAM for 38d but DONATES made the most sense for 39d which helped perp I'D SAY, which then gave me IN A JAM. Did not know Trevor NOAH so that was all perps, too.

My silly limerick du jour:

There's a game that drunk pilot might play,When he's grounded from flying today.Golf India NovemberIs his code to bartender That his favorite drink is BOMBAY

Argyle, I believe that the term is Law Enforcement Officer, hence their stock phrase "local LEOs". And just what the heck is "Too much NCIS"? I'm still not sated, though I didn't like the final episode of DiNozzo's run, and I'm not sure I'll watch it much with Michael Weatherly gone. He was the perfect foil for Gibbs.

We stopped in to our favorite café, which offers a fine array of baked goods by the slice or whatever. By advance order, full cakes and pies can be bought for takeout. Today I saw this amusing little sign at the counter:

"Short notice on cake orders leads to no cake.No cake leads to sadness.Sadness leads to a desire to eat more cake.Please order 72 hours in advance to avoid this vicious cycle."

Well, I thought I'd nailed this one, but 'twas not to be: had NOOK (aren't they in a corner, usually?) instead of ROOK (haven't played chess in decades and so didn't remember the layout). NEF instead of the more logical REF did look funny to me, but I figured it might be some obscure basketball term I didn't know. I also couldn't get the theme, even though my reveal and theme answers were all correct--thanks for explaining it, Steve. And I still enjoyed the puzzle, Jeffrey, even if I goofed up a little.

Saw a great Pageant of the Masters in Laguna Beach last night--lots of fun.

Steve, I always put a little sugar in my from-scratch spaghetti sauce made from home grown tomatoes. Oregano was a must. I used about a heaping tablespoon of sugar to serve 6-8 people. Always got raves. Had choice beef in there too & garlic & onions. I always took it to pot-luck dinners and had nothing left about half-way through the line.

A pleasant run from Mr. Wechsler. He always gives us something worthwhile to chew. The little one that gave me the hardest time was 36D. I had CDC for the longest time, and I didn't want to give it up, esp. because it helped me fill ADAM at 40A.

Took me longer than usual to finish today - and to post here. My schedule was broken up by the delivery of a power chair--a brand new Quantum top-o'-the-line wheel chair with four speeds and a tilt-a-chair option--to replace my old Jazzy 600. Where do they come up with the names for these things? The guy who brought it to me was very interesting. His kids are graduating from my university and doing very well. He is from a Colombian family, descendants of the poet Rafael Pombo. Never know who you're gonna meet...

Another horribly sad night for the United States of America, the greatest country in the world. Yes, I still believe that. But our leadership these past several years has failed us. We have become a floating raft pushed by the winds of change. We need a rudder and I don't see one in the immediate future. Can we hang on until 2020?

RAH! Work is done (Ok, I did take a nap from 8-10 only to wake to the news in Dallas for 30 min. Sadness ensued).

On San Marzano Tomatoes - they are all I use (Cento brand is pretty darn good too). PK is right - for garden sauce a bit of sugar balances the acids. Of course basil, and, I'D SAY Garlic! Lots o' garlic.

As for PASTA: If I don't have it 3x a week I'm weak - physically & mentally [I've only had Elbow PASTA salad for dinner 2x this week; can't you tell? :-)].

Jeff Wex - I was just admiring your puzzle again. I'm not exactly sure how I solved it. I kept thinking ??? but It seemed to solve itself. Very elegant.

Well, another dreaded FIW (do I have that right?). I thought I knew that composer and he was LEHRER and he spelled it LEHRER. Of course, Lerner and Low(sic?).

I had an idea similar to"Hamilton" eg. anachronistic musical. And "Risen" shockingly stole another of my ideas albeit one that never left my head. I guess you've got to get these things out.

Are they(NBA) going to do something about hackashaq tactic? The NBA used to have a"backcourt" foul. They could restore possession after one of these stiffs gets respectively fouled and he could just hang around in the backcourt

Owen, your piece is publishable with or without the CAPS. BTW thanks to all for an enjoyable blog and xword .

PS. I did this at Bob Evans and the delightful waitress contributed to PRADA. All I knew was the devil wore it??